


Release Technique

by marginalia



Category: Frances Ha (2012)
Genre: Female Friendship, Gen, Misses Clause Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 09:06:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2807093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marginalia/pseuds/marginalia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Release technique: using the momentum of a fall to rise again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Release Technique

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kapina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kapina/gifts).



_Release technique; using the momentum of a fall to rise again_

::

Frances has always moved at her own speed.

She has trouble leaving places, she says in a self-deprecating way. She is always the last one ready to go out and the last one ready to come back. Her family goes crazy waiting for her, so she leaves with a vengeance when she goes to college, leaving all the way across the damn country.

"You were born three weeks early," her mother says. "What happened?" 

Frances almost misses her plane.

::

Sophie and Frances met in the spring of their freshman year. It was a party, of course, but neither of them remembered later where exactly it was or why they came or who invited them. They didn't know then that it would matter.

They were at that stage of being freshmen where they thought they had it down. They had a rhythm. They knew what college was and who they would be in it. And yet they didn't even know each other yet.

It was the first truly warm weekend of the spring, and they escaped outside for a bit of a breeze.

"Would you like one?" Frances asked, waving a pack of cigarettes. "I don't like to smoke alone."

"This is enabling," Sophie said, taking one. "We haven't even met, and I'm enabling you."

"We should have had a cute story," Frances would say later. "Like a romantic comedy. We could tell it at dinner parties."

"We could make one up. No one would know the difference."

Frances frowned slightly. "I would."

::

They bumped into each other then from time to time. They'd probably been in each other's orbits all along -- the college was not large -- but like a film that gets referenced three times in one week, they were a pattern that emerged only with the noticing of it.

"We've got to stop meeting like this," Frances said one afternoon.

"We need to start meeting on purpose," Sophie said, and scrawled her extension on the palm of Frances's hand.

::

Frances preferred to be alone, an experience made precious by rarity. Her parents were always involved with the very best of intentions, her neighborhood was sprawling but carefully observed, and now in the dorms you even showered with company.

Lonely, sure. But alone, never.

With Sophie, she learned how to be alone together.

::

Their junior year, Frances brought Sophie home to Sacramento for Christmas for the first time. 

When Frances first suggested it to her mother she asked, "Is there something you need to tell Dad and I?"

"What? No. What? She's my friend."

"You can tell us anything, you know," her mother said, a little disappointed.

Frances called Sophie immediately. "My mom thought we were girlfriends. I think she's sad, bless her Unitarian heart. She was prepared to be so open minded."

"If it helps," Sophie suggested, "We could hold hands. I'm not going to kiss you though, at least not in front of your mother. Definitely not until you stop wearing socks in bed."

"I'm resigning myself right now to a life without Sophie kisses, then. But my socks and I shall be very happy together."

"Gross."

::

"What's our next traditional milestone?" Frances asked as they addressed graduation announcements.

"Thirtieth birthday? No, wait, 25. Then we can rent cars," Sophie said.

"I'll have my own driver by then. You too!" Frances said. "Hallmark doesn't sell cards for your first bestseller. Maybe weddings, I guess."

"Just one wedding, probably. To each other, when we give up on men."

Frances grinned. "We can start planning that next. My dress will be red. You can wear the tux."

"I do look excellent in menswear," Sophie agreed. "But it's not going to happen because sadly, you still wear socks in bed."

"Dealbreaker."

::

When they moved to New York together, that felt like it should have been a milestone. They would be their own sitcom: two independent ladies, living it up, creating awesome shit in the city. 

But it wasn't. Buying the bed, though, now that felt grown up. It took a while, complaining about the lumpy futon as Frances saved the money.

"Why are beds so expensive?"

"Why is everything so expensive?" Sophie retorted. "Besides, you're not going to become a famous dancer if you break your back on that fucking futon."

"No fucking on the futon. I don't think it could bear the strain."

::

"How do you not fall down?" she asked Sophie, who was reading texts on her phone as they walked down the street. "I fall over standing still."

"I know where I am," Sophie said. "You never know where you are." She slid her phone back in her pocket. "You're always three feet behind or a block ahead. You're waiting in the wings of her own life. I however am on stage."

Frances shoved her gently and took off, shouting, "Race you to the train!"

::

"I had a dream that Woody Allen's next film was going to be called _Mansplaining_ ," Sophie said.

"Woody Allen is not that self-aware," Frances said. "Obviously."

::

In their last apartment together, they sat in the windows and smoked. Or at least Frances did. Sophie only had a puff or two and then handed it back. "I quit," she said, by which she meant that she quit buying them.

They listened to the scraps of conversation floating up from the street and open windows. They spun stories from the pieces until the woman upstairs yelled down at them. They tumbled back into the apartment, retrieved the laptop, and slipped into Sophie's bed to watch a movie.

"Socks," Sophie commanded, and Frances dropped them in a heap at the side of the bed.

::

When change comes for Frances it's slow, or at least she's slow to realize. She's been flailing for a while, and she wonders how much of that flailing is performance. When she finds herself falling, she swings back up again. She hears herself talking and wonders why those words are coming out of her mouth. She wonders if she says it enough times, that Sophie's her best friend, that it will keep it true.

They've been best friends for their entire adult lives, even when they didn't know they were adults yet, and that is the greatest secret that Frances has learned. Adulthood is the performance and the paperwork. Your person is still your person even when they love someone else too. 

You're always going to fall. Best to learn how to do it properly.


End file.
